The tourist country Spain

Spain has many magnificent tourist attractions like Alhambra, the Merida Roman Theatre, Belchite, La Sagrada Familia, the
Royal Palace of Madrid, Alcazar and the aqueduct of Segovia, the Palma
Cathedral, Baelo Claudia, Monasterio de Piedra, Mezquita de Cordoba, Cuenca,
Costa del Sol, Ibiza, Mallorca, Menorca, the Canary Islands, Ronda City, Barcelona,
Santiago de Compostela, Museo del Prado, El Escorial and the Cave of Altamira. Spain has also many secrets that very few tourists know about. Before you decide to visit Spain as a tourist, please take a moment to find out whether this is a country whose economy and values you want to support. They way innocent and defenseless beings are treated tells a lot about a society. These news stories give you some information on how animals are treated in Spain.Please note that many of the images in the articles are very graphic.

NEWS FROM SPAIN

6 May 2015, The Daily RecordIn Spain, the hunting dogs podencos typically spend their lives on a short chain with no shelter from extreme weather conditions, or they are kept in dark sheds tightly packed together, sometimes without the possibility to even lie down. The podencos are usually starved, because the hunters believe that hungry dogs hunt better. After the end of the hunting season when the hunters want to get rid of the dogs, the podencos are sometimes hung or poisoned, or more often driven to a remote location and dumped after having been beaten, their legs broken or their eyes gouged out. Read article24 January 2015, ExpressToro Jubilo is a ”festival” in the Spanish town of Medinaceli where a bull is set on fire and tortured for entertainment.﻿Read article

7 January 2015, The Daily MailThe horrific treatment of Spanish hunting dogs: About 60,000 abandoned or tortured to death each year with acid, dumped to die in tunnels and abandoned wells, hung in trees or left with broken bones to starve to death.Read article

24 September 2014, El PaísSpain is reknowned for its ”festivals” where animals are brutally tortured to death. In Cazalilla, Jaén, A turkey is thrown from the bell tower of the church.In Medinaceli, Soria, a bull is tied to a post, its horns are soaked in petrol and set on fire. After being released the bull is beaten and chased around the town. In Denia, Alicante, and L’Ampolla, Tarragona, bulls are chased off a pier, then dragged out of the sea. In Villapando, Zamora, a bull is chased by a range of motor vehicles. In Benavente and Fornalutx, Mallorca, bulls are chased around by a crowd with long sticks.In Ohanes, Almería, a bull is tied up and forced to bow down eight times in front of the statue of a saint.In Tordesillas, Valladolid, a bull is chased through the streets and tortured to death.In Robledo de Chavela pigeons that have been forced into jars are stoned to death.In San Bartolomé de Pinares, Ávila, and Alosno, Huelva, horses, donkeys and mules are forced to jump over bonfires or to walk on burning coals.In Erandio, Vizcaya, big stones are tied to oxen, and they are forced to drag them across fields. The animals are often drugged to improve their performance, and it’s not uncommon that the animals die.Read article

3 October 2013, The TelegraphSpain protects bullfighting and grants it a cultural heritage, although 76 per cent of Spaniards are against public funds being used to support bullfighting. The EU subsidises bullfighting with enormous amounts of European taxpayers’ money.Read article

20 September 2010, The Daily MailToro de la Vega, a blood ”festival” in Tordesillas where a bull is chased through the streets, tortured to death: its ears, tail and testicles are cut off and thereafter speared to death. The EU subsidises blood fiestas like these with £37 million a year.Read article

1 January 2006, The GuardianIn Spain the hunting dogs are hanged if they ”humiliate” their masters by not running fast enough. The dog is tied to a tree with a noose around his neck set at a height so that his front paws cannot touch the ground. When the dog gets too tired to stand on his back legs and support himself he is strangled by the noose. This type of torture is called ”the typewriter” or ”the piano player” by the Spanish hunters, and it takes many days until the dogs finally dies. The hunters also use many other methods to torture the dogs to death, like throwing the dogs into wells, burning the dogs alive, injecting them with bleach, dragging them behind cars, cutting their paws off, putting a stick vertically into the dogs’ mouths so that they starve to death.Read article